The game board.
(These rules are not final, but items in red text are especially likely to change.)
The Game Board shows a grid of squares in an octagonal shape. Heavier lines and varying background colors divide the board into five separate regions. 18 of the squares (more or less evenly distributed across the board) are specially marked to hold Targets or the initial Target locations may be random.
A scoring track runs around the outside border of the Game Board. At one side of the board, there is also a Turn Track that runs from 1 to 24 or maybe to 16 or 20.
A Corner is a flat square piece the same size as a single square of the Game Board. Two edges are outlined with the player's color; these define the corner of the larger 4x4 square of influence that the Corner piece will create. In the center of the piece a mark shows how many Influence Points the Corner exerts on each square in its purview.
Targets are flat round pieces the same diameter as a single square of the Game Board. Targets are two-sided; each side displays one of three colors (distinct from player colors). On the obverse, a small central mark displays the color shown on the reverse; most (not all) Targets have a different color on the reverse. Targets start out with the marked side up, and are later flipped over: the mark shows the color of the Target when flipped, so that players can plan ahead.
As a recognition aid, each Target color is also associated with a pattern.
Each player receives his Corners, which are initially placed off the board, in the player's supply.
The Action Cards are shuffled and placed face-down in a deck beside the board.
Each player's Scoring Token is placed on the Scoring Track at zero, and the Turn Counter is placed at Turn 0 on the Turn Track.
When the Turn Counter reaches the end of the Turn Track, play pauses for a Scoring Round (see below).
After the First Scoring Round, and every 12 moves (or so) thereafter, each player receives an Action Card taken at random from the deck.
Place a Corner - The active player may take a 1-IP Corner from his supply and place it on any empty square. (Empty squares are those that contain neither a Target nor another Corner.)
Rotate a Corner - The active player may rotate any one of his Corners on the board, either 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
Move a Corner - The active player may move any one of his Corners on the board to any orthogonally adjacent empty square. The Corner may not rotate.
Remove a Corner - The active player may remove any one of his Corners from the board, and place it in his supply.
Upgrade a Corner - The active player may replace any of his 1-IP Corners on the board with a 2-IP Corner from his supply. The 2-IP Corner must be placed in the same orientation as the replaced Corner.
Swap Corners - The active player may exchange the locations of any two of his Corners (usually a 1-IP Corner and a 2-IP Corner, as this Action is otherwise useless). Each Corner must be placed in the same orientation as the Corner it replaces.
Swap Targets - The active player may exchange the locations of any two Targets on the board.
Use an Action Card - The active player may execute the Action shown on one of his Action Cards, then discard the Action Card.
Rotate Another Player's Corner - The active player may rotate a Corner belonging to any other player.
Two More Actions - The Active Player can take two more Actions in this turn (in addition to the action of using this Action Card).
Move One of Your Corners - The active player can move one of his own Corners to any other empty location on the board. The Corner may not rotate.
Move One of Another Player's Corners - The active player can move one of any other player's Corners to any other empty location on the board. The Corner may not rotate.
Swap Any Two Corners - The active player may exchange the locations of any two Corners on the board, including those of other players. Each Corner must be placed in the same orientation as the Corner it replaces.
Private Score - The active player receives the Victory Points for scoring any one region or color. The active player chooses what will be scored. Only the active player receives points from the scoring. The Action Card displays the scoring table to be used.
General Score - The active player chooses either Colors or Regions to be scored. The selected category is scored in much the same way as a normal Scoring Round. All players receive points from the scoring. The Action Card displays the scoring tables to be used.
Immediately following the first Scoring Round, all Targets are flipped over to display the reverse. This will change the distribution of colors on the board, and these new colors are used for all subsequent Color Set scoring.
The length of the turn Track may vary depending on the number of players.
Scoring is as follows.
For each set of Targets, Victory Points are assigned to the players who have the most, second-most, and third-most Influence Points on the Targets in the set:
First Scoring Round: Color Sets (all Targets of the same color)
1st 10 VP
2nd 6 VP
3rd 1 VP
Second Scoring Round: Region Sets (all Targets in the same region of the board)
1st 10 VP
2nd 6 VP
3rd 3 VP
Third Scoring Round: Color Sets (all Targets of the same color)
1st 20 VP
2nd 10 VP
3rd 4 VP
These VP values are not final. The intent is to award more points for the later scoring rounds, to reward players who sacrifice easy scores in the beginning in order to have better placement for the later rounds (this is why you can see, during the first phase, what colors the Targets will have during the final phase: it lets you plan ahead). A simple progression won't be exactly right as there are 5 Regions but only 3 Colors, which means that players have more opportunities to score when scoring Regions. But I'll need to playtest in order to find a final, correct balance for VP awards.
That original idea failed for a couple of reasons. One is that the stacking mechanism is too powerful: it is way more useful to stack a piece than to place a new one. That effect could be limited by the right set of rules, perhaps. The other problem was more compelling: it was too hard to see the interlocking rings of hexes and calculate the influence on each target. A computerized game could solve this by using the computer as a scorekeeper and referee (and I might look into that some day), but right now I want a board game.
To limit the powers of the pieces, I first restricted the hex pieces to a "ray" or "cone" of influence instead of a circle; eventually I recognized that a square grid would be easier to keep track of, and wound up with the current "corner" mechanism. Stacking I reduced to replacing a single-influence piece with a double-influence piece, and abandoned the fade-over-distance notion.
A recent innovation, which should have been obvious from the beginning, was to score different categories at different times. I'd originally planned to have three categories - colors, regions, and icons - and score all categories at every general scoring; but I realized that there would be a lot of accounting to do. To reduce the accounting I decided to score only one category at each general scoring, and a different one every time -- and then realized that that would also force players to think ahead, move pieces, and develop an over-arching strategy. It provides a "story arc." After a solo playtest, I found that icons were harder to see than colors, so I replaced icons with a second set of colors on the reverse side of the targets.
Originally an identical set of Action Cards was given to each player at the start of the game. But I found that there was little point in using an Action Card if another player could just undo it on his next turn; so it's important that players have (or most likely have) different Action Cards. I also felt that the game was a bit dry, and I wanted more random surprises. So to solve both problems I decided to shuffle the Action Cards into a single deck and hand them out at random to players as the game progresses. This also adds story arc, as more and more special cards become available later in the game.
R:R
R:R
R:G
R:G
R:B
R:B
G:R
G:R
G:G
G:G
G:B
G:B
B:R
B:R
B:G
B:G
B:B
B:B